The Slayer 314 Project: Remains
by Philip S
Summary: Completed! Sequel to 'Whispers': Trying to find out what exactly the Initiative has done to her in the botched 314 experiment, Buffy learns something that will change her life forever.
1. Chapter 1

Remains 1/8 (#2 of The Slayer 314 Project)  
  
by Philip S.  
  
Summary: Trying to find out what exactly the Initiative has done to her in the botched 314 experiment, Buffy learns something that will change her life forever.  
  
Spoilers: 4th Season up to the episode "Hush". After that it's AU.  
  
Rating: R  
  
Disclaimer: All characters taken from the shows Buffy and Angel are property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and others. No infringement is intended.  
  
#  
  
Previously on Buffy the Vampire Slayer:  
  
After Riley learns of Buffy's identity as the Slayer, he lures her into a trap. Buffy is captured by the Initiative. Professor Walsh wants to create the ultimate warrior, a fusion of magic and technology, with the instincts and fighting experience of the Slayer serving as a template for the android's artificial intelligence.  
  
Things go wrong, though. The Initiative draws its power from the Hellmouth, yet underestimated the dangers inherent in that. An overload causes a huge explosion that destroys most of the base and Buffy escapes, confused and disoriented, hearing strange voices inside her head.  
  
She later realizes that the AI that was to serve as the android's mind has instead been transferred into her. Calling it Anne, Buffy tries to come to term with having a second entity living inside her. Unbeknownst to her the Watcher's Council has registered the death of a Slayer and decides to send Watcher Rose McNamara to Sunnydale to find out who died.  
  
Meanwhile the military tries to find out what exactly happened inside the Initiative, especially after surveillance footage shows them that the android, codenamed Adam One, was not destroyed, but instead wandered off into the night.  
  
#  
  
Part 1  
  
General Robert Allen was not having a good day. Not even close. It had been a nightmarish two weeks now, to be exact. Ever since an explosion that had leveled a large part of the university campus of a small town called Sunnydale.  
  
He was cleaning up a mess. One hell of a mess, to be exact. One that threatened to end quite a number of careers, his own included. He had not been one of the brass figures that had enthusiastically endorsed Maggy Walsh's supernatural Frankenstein adventure, but he had been involved. Which meant that his head would roll as well if he didn't get the house back in order real soon.  
  
Leaning back in his chair, he sighed. Looking at the good points, his people had made sure that Walsh's pan-dimensional energy converter, the machine she had used to draw power from the metaphysical conversion in Sunnydale, would not pose any more trouble. Apparently it had gone into automatic shutdown after the overload and a team of specialists was busy deconstructing it. The thing wouldn't be turned on again until every single microchip was checked out and judged perfect.  
  
That was the good news. Then there was, of course, the bad news.  
  
The 314 Project. Walsh's little dream of creating the ultimate synthesis of magic and technology. Adam One, an android created from a magically forged metal, damn near indestructible and almost infinitely versatile. To be guided by an artificial intelligence that would assimilate the knowledge, instincts, and characteristics of a supernatural warrior called the Slayer.  
  
Walsh had captured the Slayer and wanted to feed her brain into the android when everything had gone to hell. Allen had seen the final recordings made by the Initiative's surveillance systems a hundred times now.  
  
Had seen the crimson metal form of Adam One walk out of the burning base and vanish into the night.  
  
Somewhere out there the most powerful weapon ever constructed was running around free and God alone knew what was going on inside its head. Had the AI malfunctioned? Or was it fully active and following its own agenda? Allen knew that numerous safety protocols were supposed to have been included in the AI's programming, but who could tell how much that was worth after an explosion of demonic energy?  
  
He rubbed his eyes. Not much sleep these last two weeks for the man who was responsible for finding Adam One and making sure that it was of no danger to national security. Two weeks without a single trace of the android.  
  
"I hate this job," he muttered to himself.  
  
"I feel your pain," a voice out of nowhere answered.  
  
Allen looked up sharply, searching his dark office for the origin of the voice. He was sitting in the middle of one of the most secured army bases in the country, just outside Los Angeles. Who could possibly...?  
  
There. A dark silhouette stood out near his window. A man in a long coat, dressed all in black.  
  
"Who are you?" Allen demanded, one of his hands slowly going toward the drawer with his gun, the other reaching for the alarm button.  
  
"Someone who has a lot of questions."  
  
The voice came from behind him this time. The silhouette in front of him had vanished and suddenly there was someone behind him. He had never even seen him move. Two inhumanly strong hands grabbed his wrists and pulled him out of his chair. Allen wanted to scream, but suddenly found himself airborne.  
  
The next thing he knew a tall man with a youthful face was holding him by the throat, pressing him against the wall.  
  
"As I said," the dark man repeated, "I have lots of questions. About the Initiative, about this Adam One, and what exactly you did with the Slayer."  
  
"You'll regret this," Allen chocked out, trying in vain to unclench the steel-vise fingers around his throat. "You won't leave this base alive!"  
  
"Gee, you think so?" The face of the man changed. Amber demon eyes blazed at him, fangs glistened in the light of the desk lamp. "Well, seeing as I didn't arrive that way either, that won't be too much of a problem."  
  
General Allen knew a Vampire when he saw one. Unfortunately for him he did not know that the Vampire holding him by the throat had a human soul that would keep him from harming a human being. Much.  
  
As a result of that missing knowledge Allen was very much terrified.  
  
#  
  
Rose McNamara got off the plane and looked around the place she had arrived at. Sunnydale, California. By all appearances it was a perfectly normal American town, its inhabitants friendly and without a care in the world. Rose knew, though, that appearances were very deceiving.  
  
Rose was a Watcher. A member of the organization that, since time immemorial, had fought against the supernatural forces that would destroy the world they were sworn to protect. Supernatural forces like those present here in Sunnydale.  
  
Unfortunately for the Council its primary weapon in that fight had recently deserted them. The Slayer was no longer interested in cooperating with the organization that had guided her for millennia.  
  
Rose had studied all the files concerning the two current Slayers. There being two of them was a fascinating occurrence in itself. Being a junior member of the Council she had withheld her opinions on the matter. She still thought it a grave mistake, though, that the Council had refused to help Angel when he had been poisoned. From what she had read in their files it was more than clear how much the Slayer cared for the ensouled Vampire.  
  
As far as Faith was concerned, she didn't know how that matter could have been dealt with in a more positive way. Windham-Pryce may have acted rashly in trying to bring Faith to England for discipline, yet even he could not have foreseen the second Slayer joining forces with the other side. Rose suspected that he had been fired mostly to prevent too many questions from being asked.  
  
All in all the situation here in Sunnydale was not one that Rose found very positive. She doubted that she was very much welcome here. It didn't change things, though. One of the Slayers had died and she was here to find out who, how, and what would happen now, for as far as the Council could tell no new Slayer had been called.  
  
During her plane ride she had been informed that Faith had vanished from the hospital in which she had spent the last few months after her battle against Buffy. Her current whereabouts were unknown. Seeing as the rouge Slayers mental condition was one big question mark right now, Rose didn't think that was much of a good omen for her mission here.  
  
The Council would no doubt prefer for her to work in secret at the beginning, observing and gathering information. They had given her permission to make contact with their no doubt disgruntled former employee here in this city, but only if it couldn't be helped.  
  
Rose shrugged and made her way to the flat of one Rupert Giles.  
  
TO BE CONTINUED 


	2. Chapter 2

Part 2  
  
#  
  
Watch your back, Anne's voice called out in Buffy's head and she immediately twisted around and threw a high kick at the Vampire that had come up behind her. She hadn't noticed him, but nothing much escaped her mental roommate, it seemed.  
  
Two more kicks and a stake to the heart finished off the last of the Vampire gang she had been fighting and Buffy remained still for a moment, listening for signs of more opponents.  
  
The area around us is clear. Anne announced confidently. No more bloodsuckers for at least 500 meters.  
  
"What's that in yards?" Buffy asked. "And why did they have to program you with the metric system anyway?"  
  
Because it makes more sense than those antique Imperial measurements? Anne asked, amused.  
  
Buffy chuckled. Just two weeks and there were times when she was almost used to the presence of the artificial intelligence inside her head. It helped that Anne, as Buffy called her, was a more or less identical duplicate of Buffy's own mind. The AI had taken her as a blueprint and so they got along quite well for the most part.  
  
A lot of times she still creeped Buffy out, though.  
  
All this is new for me as well, remember? Anne said. I was born just two weeks ago, after all.  
  
"Yeah, I know. Sorry, but I'm afraid I'll need a lot more weeks until I'm comfortable with this."  
  
It went unspoken that Buffy secretly hoped for some way to separate them. Willow was busy looking for a spell that might extract Anne from her head, but this was complicated by the matter of where to put Anne after that. Buffy didn't want her to die, after all. It would be like sending her own sister to death.  
  
"Think we should do another sweep?" Buffy asked as she casually strolled out of the cemetery.  
  
I think we put the fear of God in the Vamps for tonight. You staked seven of them. That a personal record?  
  
"No, but close. Busy nights as of late."  
  
Buffy briefly wondered what someone watching her might think of her right now. Talking to herself was considered a sign of insanity, wasn't it? Too bad no one but her could hear Anne. Buffy didn't need to speak out loud in order for Anne to hear her, of course, but conversing someone by just thinking things without speaking them was an art that needed practice.  
  
She wondered if she'd ever get used to it.  
  
Knowing Buffy's thoughts, Anne also knew that Buffy was frustrated in more ways than one. Just two weeks had passed since she had almost died. Two weeks since she had been betrayed by someone she had considered a friend, maybe even a possible lover. Two weeks since the love of her life, Angel, had come back to Sunnydale to help her, only to take off again once the trouble was over.  
  
On top of that she now had to share her head with a separate personality. Anne wasn't much surprised that Buffy was on edge. Still worse, they hadn't been able to go down into the remains of the Initiative base again since the night they had shut down Walsh's little hell machine. The site was constantly swarming with people. FEMA, by the letters on their jackets, but Anne suspected they were really military, here to clean up their mess.  
  
Which was fine with her, of course. It wouldn't do for Buffy to find out the truth about what had happened to her down in the Initiative lab too quickly, after all.  
  
#  
  
Rupert Giles had been a worried man these last two weeks. It had begun with those long, painful hours in which he had feared that his Slayer, his daughter in all but flesh, had died. Died in a fiery explosion that had leveled half of Sunnydale university campus.  
  
Buffy was not dead, thank God, but neither was she the same girl she had been before. The presence of the mysterious 'Anne' inside her head was only the most obvious change in her since that incident.  
  
Unlike all the others, except maybe Angel, he had not been blind with joy at finding Buffy alive and seemingly well. There were a lot of things that didn't add up.  
  
First of all, if Buffy had been right in the center of that gigantic explosion, why hadn't she suffered even a single scratch? Giles had seen the fireball from halfway across town and yet Buffy hadn't even been singed.  
  
Another matter was Anne's very selective knowledge of the events inside the Initiative. She knew of the presence of that energy converter, as well as what Walsh had attempted to create down there, yet she professed to know nothing more about what else Walsh might have been up to or what possible dangers might yet lurk within the Initiative wreckage. Nor could she say how it was that Buffy was completely unharmed.  
  
Giles knew that Angel was currently in the process of finding out more about the Initiative. Giles was glad that they had the assistance of the souled Vampire, no matter what personal dislike he might still harbor for the creature whose evil twin had killed the woman he had loved. Angel was a good man and wouldn't rest until he found out more.  
  
As for Giles, he hadn't found out much on his own so far. On top of that, a third matter of worry had just presented herself on his doorstep.  
  
"Thank you for the tea, Mr. Giles," Rose McNamara said, sitting down on Giles' couch.  
  
The Watcher was a woman in her late thirties, Giles estimated, with long red hair and prominent cheekbones. Her eyes were a little too hard to make her face really beautiful, but, dressed as she was in a simple gray pants suit, the cup of tea cradled elegantly in her long-fingered hands, she made quite the picture on his couch, Giles had to admit.  
  
"I hope you won't mind, Miss McNamara, if we skip the pleasantries. I doubt you came here to drink tea with a former member of the Watchers' Council."  
  
Rose sipped from her tea and regarded Giles with her hard, green eyes.  
  
"That was not the reason for my coming, no." She placed the tea cup on the couch table. "It is quite a serious matter, to be precise. Serious enough that I am asking for your help."  
  
Giles raised an eyebrow.  
  
"My help? Does the Council know about this?"  
  
"They do," Rose said. "They authorized me to make contact with you. It concerns the Slayers, as you no doubt guessed, and seeing as Buffy Summers would probably not be very open to a member of the Council after what happened a few months ago, I decided to speak to you first."  
  
"What is this matter?" Giles asked, sitting down across from her.  
  
"The Council's Seers registered the Slayer's demise."  
  
Giles just stared at her for a long moment, his face unmoving.  
  
"It happened about two weeks ago," Rose continued when it became obvious that Giles would not speak first. "It took us some time to make certain, that is why I am this late."  
  
She looked at him. "Judging by your lack of reaction I assume it is not Buffy Summers who has died?"  
  
Giles shook his head. "She is alive. I saw her just a few hours ago."  
  
Rose sighed. "Well, then one of my questions is already answered. Faith is ..."  
  
"... fine as well," Giles interrupted her. "I last saw her three days ago."  
  
The younger Watcher stopped talking and Giles could see the wheels turning behind her forehead.  
  
"Two weeks ago," Giles continued, "Buffy was caught up in an explosion that did a lot of damage to this city. She ... doesn't quite remember what happened to her."  
  
"Well," Rose said, "it seems history repeated itself then. Buffy has died once before, hasn't she?"  
  
Giles nodded. This was not one of his fondest memories.  
  
"The strange thing, Mr. Giles," Rose said, "is that we have found no signs of a new Slayer being called. The last time Buffy ... died, her return from the dead notwithstanding, Kendra was called as the new Slayer. When Kendra died, without returning, unfortunately, there was also a new Slayer called. Faith."  
  
Giles nodded, understanding her dilemma.  
  
"And you are quite certain about the death signs?" he asked Rose.  
  
"Quite certain, Mr. Giles. One of the Slayers died, we have no doubt about that."  
  
Giles nodded again, trying to think things through rationally. It was quite possible that Buffy had died in that explosion and then been brought back somehow. Maybe by this Anne persona inside her head, maybe simply by her stubbornness. He would put almost nothing past her. And seeing as her replacement had already been called in Kendra, maybe her new death would not necessarily result in a new Slayer.  
  
It made some sense, Giles though, yet at the same time it did not. Not together with everything else he knew. If something had managed to kill Buffy down there, it made the fact of her total lack of injuries that much more incredulous. Not to mention that Anne might just have thought to mention a little fact like Buffy being dead for a while down there if she had really been telling them the whole truth.  
  
Things didn't add up.  
  
Giles didn't like that at all.  
  
TO BE CONTINUED 


	3. Chapter 3

Part 3  
  
#  
  
General Robert Allen slumped in the corner, unconscious, and Angel paid him no further heed. He had learned everything the General knew about the Initiative and the so-called 314 project. He had also told Angel that the Initiative surveillance system had maintained a live feed of the experiment's proceedings until the explosion had knocked out the cameras.  
  
They had the entire thing on file.  
  
Angel waited for the General's computer to boot up, all the while thinking. Anne, the artificial intelligence in Buffy's head, had told them that Walsh had liked to play things close to her chest. She had told them that the higher-ups in the military probably didn't have a clue what Walsh was doing on a day-to-day basis.  
  
That didn't go together with a live-feed of all the experiments, did it? There was, of course, the possibility that Walsh hadn't known about it, that her superiors had spied on her without her knowledge, but nothing Allen had said suggested anything like that. So either Anne had simply been wrong or ...  
  
The computer flared to life in front of him and Angel called up the files Allen had told him about. They were neatly ordered by date, location, and designation of the experiment. Angel almost smiled as he saw one designated 'Subject: Hostile 17'. That had to be the one where they had put the chip into Spike's brain. Angel decided to take that one along as well so he could watch it later.  
  
Finally he found the files he had been looking for. The 314 experiment. There were quite a few of them and Angel opened the first one.  
  
Design specs for the Adam One android, records of Walsh's building him. Angel skimmed across her notes, interested, but without the time necessary to study them properly. He briefly focused on the metal the android had been forged out of.  
  
Promethean Metal, Walsh had called it. Apparently a steel variant forged from cold iron, several more exotic metals, and something Walsh designated the 'Skin of Proteus'.  
  
Proteus, Angel mused. Greek mythology. Son of Oceanus and Antibe, God of 300 Changes. Legends described how Proteus could change his countenance at will and produced the seemings the Gods of Olympus used when they walked the Earth.  
  
Angel had never met a Greek God, generally dismissing them as myth. Yet he couldn't discount the possibility that the legends had some basis in truth. If that was true, then the properties built into this 'Promethean Metal' could be astounding.  
  
He shook his head. Time to delve further into that at a latter date. He saved all the files on disk, skimming ahead to the ones he was really looking for.  
  
Live feed from the experiment. Pictures of what they did to Buffy. Angel opened the first video file and leaned back to watch.  
  
#  
  
"Truly a magnificent specimen," Walsh said, looking at the girl tied to the operating table in front of her. A smile crossed her lips. She could tell some of the soldiers and scientists helping her had hoped to catch a glimpse of nude Slayer during the proceedings, but Walsh wasn't interested in the girl's body and she didn't want to distract the male help.  
  
"The PaDEC is at full readiness, professor," one of her assistants announced. The pan-dimensional energy converter she had built to harness the mystical energies of Sunnydale's dimensional nexus. Her greatest achievement.  
  
At least until Adam One would awaken.  
  
"Activate the core tap," she told him, then turned toward the young woman standing beside the unconscious Slayer. "You have everything you need?"  
  
"Of course," Colleen Wing said. "I have spent weeks preparing for this. I was ready days ago."  
  
Walsh didn't much care for the witch's attitude, but she was the best mage the government had in its employ. Walsh had seen her files and knew that she had all the necessary skills. And if she wasn't the most pleasant person, well, Walsh knew that she herself wasn't considered the most social of people either.  
  
"Power levels optimal," the assistant guiding the PaDEC told her.  
  
The machines around the laboratory started humming as power was pumped into them. A crimson glare filled the laboratory pit and a tingle of excitement made its way down Walsh's spine. So much power gathered here, all under her control, soon to give birth to the most powerful creature ever to walk the Earth.  
  
"Begin phase one," Walsh ordered the scientists and the witch.  
  
Colleen Wing began to chant, even as the crimson glow began to surround the crimson form of Adam One. Walsh watched her greatest creation as power poured into it, filling it to the breaking point. This would be her finest hour.  
  
A scream pierced the hushed silence of the lab and Walsh saw that the Slayer had come awake. That was a bit of a surprise, the chemicals they had pumped into her should have kept her out for days. There was that same crimson light surrounding her body and she screamed.  
  
Walsh shrugged. Awake or asleep, it didn't make much of a difference now.  
  
Wing touched the Slayer's forehead with one hand, magical power glowing at her fingertips, her other hand reaching out to Adam One. The Slayer's scream intensified even as the wires connecting her to the android start to hum. Technology was at work, digitizing the physically manifest parts of the mind that would become the blueprint for Adam One. At the same time magic was flowing between them, taking those parts that science could not yet grasp. Instincts. Mystical senses. Everything that made the Slayer the greatest of supernatural warriors.  
  
Until today, at least.  
  
The humming died, the chanting fell silent.  
  
"Begin phase two," Walsh ordered  
  
#  
  
Angel paused the recording, needing a break. Seeing her like this, suffering, was almost more than he could bear. Knowing that he hadn't been there to help her, to protect her ...  
  
He shook his head. All this was in the past. Buffy was alive, she had survived this ordeal. And he had to watch it to the end if he wanted to help her find out what had happened to her on that day. All these people who had hurt her were dead now. They had paid for their deeds in full.  
  
With a sigh Angel clicked play once more.  
  
#  
  
"We're having a problem with the core tap," someone yelled at Walsh as the humming of the machines, filled with the power of the nexus, grew a lot louder than it should have been.  
  
"Stabilize," Walsh screamed, running toward her console. Nothing could go wrong! Not now! This was what she had worked for all these years. It was her crowning achievement, her moment of glory. Nothing must go wrong!  
  
Seeing her readings, Walsh knew that something had. Something major.  
  
"Shut down! Go to emergency shutdown!"  
  
#  
  
The cameras were momentarily blinded by the light of the explosion. After a minute or so one of them went back up, showing a lot of static, but still transmitting things from inside the Initiative base. Angel saw burning people, running around in searing pain. He heard screams, terrified screams.  
  
A part of himself he was not proud of almost smiled as he saw Walsh's form on fire, crumbling to the ground. He quickly dragged his eyes away from her and tried to find Buffy in the inferno the camera showed him.  
  
Angel watched as the crimson form of Adam One started moving, making its way out of the wreckage it had been buried in. A part of him remembered all the things the android was supposedly capable of and how dangerous it could be if it had really gotten out, but Allen had already told him all about that before he watched the video, so it didn't faze him much.  
  
It was the other thing he saw that made his blood freeze.  
  
Five minutes later Angel was out of the military base, all the records safely on disk in his coat pocket, but forgotten for the moment. The only thing he knew was that he had to get to Sunnydale as quickly as possible.  
  
"My God," he mumbled to himself as he sped towards his car, fumbling for his cell phone at the same time. "My God!"  
  
TO BE CONTINUED 


	4. Chapter 4

Part 4  
  
#  
  
"Hey guys, what's up?" Buffy asked as she entered Giles' apartment, seeing the entire gang assembled there. The entire gang plus a strange woman. "And who's that?"  
  
"Buffy," Giles made the introductions, "this is Rose McNamara. She is a Watcher."  
  
Rose had started to come forward to greet Buffy, but was stopped in her tracks by the hostile look on Buffy's face.  
  
"What's she doing here?" Buffy asked in a cold, cold voice. "I fired the Council, remember?"  
  
"She came here because the stiff suits overseas think you're dead," Spike offered from where he stood in Giles' kitchen. "Too bad they were wrong."  
  
"Dead?" Buffy asked, confused and getting angrier by the second. She was really getting fed up with Spike's presence, too. "I'm not dead. How come they think I'm dead? Rapidly running out of patience here, people!"  
  
Giles came toward her and put a calming hand on her shoulder.  
  
"Sit down, Buffy. We have a few things to discuss."  
  
With everyone seated on the couch Giles started to explain.  
  
"The Council of Watchers has a group of seers, Buffy, whose sole job it is to keep a look out for potential new Slayers and to ... to inform them when the current Slayer ... when she dies."  
  
"Must be a great job," Buffy mumbled.  
  
"It seems the seers did register the Slayer's death, Buffy," Giles continued.  
  
For a moment Buffy was confused, then she paled. "Faith?"  
  
These last two weeks, ever since Faith had awoken from her coma, Buffy had slowly but surely managed to put her anger against Faith to rest. The other Slayer seemed genuinely eager to change and, so far, had done a very good job of it. It was almost like the old times, when the Chosen Two had patrolled together, before everything had gone down the tubes.  
  
"The seers saw the death two weeks ago, Buffy," Giles calmed her down. "Which makes it right around the time ..."  
  
"... I was down in that laboratory," Buffy finished for him.  
  
There was a curious silence inside her head.  
  
"Anything you want to tell me about this, Anne?" Buffy asked, earning a strange look from Rose.  
  
"Who is ...?" the Watcher whispered to Giles.  
  
"Long story!"  
  
"Anne?" Buffy asked again when no answer was forthcoming.  
  
Yes? a very hesitant voice sounded out in Buffy's head. Buffy sighed internally. The artificial intelligence might as well have been wearing a sign saying 'I have something to hide' on her nonexistent forehead.  
  
"On the topic of me being dead ..." Buffy began.  
  
You are not dead, Anne quickly said. I'm sure. You're sitting right here. I'd notice if you were dead. Really.  
  
"I know that I'm not dead right now. What about two weeks ago?"  
  
Buffy did notice that Rose was staring holes into her, but she didn't care what the Watcher might think about her mental stability right now.  
  
I ... I'm really not qualified to talk about all this dead and life stuff, Anne said. I mean, I'm a machine, remember? Computer program, artificial intelligence. What do I know about life and death?  
  
"I am sure you are perfectly capable of knowing when the body you bunk in is dead, so quit dancing around the question! Was I or wasn't I dead in that fucking laboratory down there?"  
  
She saw Giles flinch, unused to her using profanity, but she honestly didn't care. Xander and Willow, along with a bored-looking Anya, were just looking on, trying to make sense of her conversation with hearing but one side of it. Rose looked confused mostly.  
  
There might have been some of that, Anne admitted after a moment. The being dead stuff, I mean. Some.  
  
Buffy felt her stomach lurch up as Anne's words sunk in. Dead. She had been dead. Again. She very clearly remembered the first time she had been dead, drowned in the Master's little pool. She hadn't seen a tunnel of light or singing angels or anything of the sort.  
  
Just darkness. Eternal and everlasting. She never wanted to go back into that dark place.  
  
"Why didn't you tell me?" she screamed at the voice inside her head.  
  
What was I supposed to say? Anne retorted. Hey, Buffy, great news! Not only do you have someone else living inside your head, you get the extra price of having died down in the Initiative laboratory. I'm sure that would have been a great conversation starter.  
  
Buffy found herself pacing Giles' apartment in front of her friends without remembering getting up from the couch.  
  
"I had a right to know," she yelled.  
  
"Know what?"  
  
Everyone looked toward the door, where Faith stood, looking confused.  
  
"Knocking seems to have gone out of style," Giles muttered to himself.  
  
"Who's she?" Faith pointed at rose.  
  
"A Watcher," Xander and Willow said at the same time.  
  
Faith took two steps back, looking somewhere between angry and frightened. The last time the Watchers had come by, they had tried to kidnap her to England to undergo the Council's disciplinary program.  
  
"Glad to meet you, Faith," Rose said without getting up, not wanting to frighten the Slayer into doing anything rash. Like beating her into a pulp or worse.  
  
"Sure," Faith just said.  
  
"Please come in, Faith!" Giles tried to smooth things over a little. "You have nothing to fear from Miss McNamara and we could maybe use your input on the matter."  
  
Reluctantly Faith walked into the apartment, sitting down as far away from Rose as was possible.  
  
"So what's the big bad?" she finally asked when the strained silence got to her.  
  
"Faith," Giles began, "when you awoke from your coma, you told us you had a dream about Buffy being in trouble."  
  
"Yeah," Faith said, unsure of where this was going.  
  
"We need details, Faith," Rose interjected. "Prophetic Slayer dreams are notoriously ..."  
  
"Shut up," Buffy snarled at her. "You are tolerated here, nothing more! Just be thankful we're not throwing you out on your ass!"  
  
Everyone was stunned by Buffy's sudden outburst. Giles, sensing the distress in his young charge, decided to best continue on.  
  
"Faith, we have reason to believe that ... that Buffy ... well, that she ... died, when she was down in the Initiative base. Seeing as you woke up pretty much at the same moment as that explosion took place, maybe your dream holds some ... clues that might aid us."  
  
Faith nodded and, after some hesitation, described everything she remembered about her dream. How Giles had told her to look him up, how Spike had turned up to tell her that staying alive was highly overrated, how Angel had sung about a coming end of the world, and how Buffy had been sitting at the bar, eating little faces while watching the show.  
  
"Gross," Xander just said when she relayed the part about the faces.  
  
"Oh, that's nothing," Anya chirped. "There was this guy in Spain once, and I made him ..."  
  
"Not now, Anya," Giles shut her up.  
  
"Just remembering," she pouted.  
  
"I'm afraid all this isn't making much sense," Rose said, not too loudly lest the Slayer take offense.  
  
"I'm afraid you're right," Giles added.  
  
"Anne?" Buffy asked under her breath while the others discussed Faith's dream.  
  
Now you're asking me about dreams? What do I know about dreams?  
  
"You know something about this and I want to know what!"  
  
There was silence inside her head for a long time.  
  
Please don't, Buffy, Anne whispered finally. Just don't!  
  
"What?" Buffy yelled, attracting everyone's attention.  
  
Anne just stayed silent.  
  
Buffy shook her head and looked at the others.  
  
"Anne is keeping something from me and now she's gone into silent mode. I think we have no choice. We have to go down into the Initiative base."  
  
"Hey, we tried that, remember?" Xander rose from the couch. "There are people swarming all over that place and they have clean-up-dirty-laundry- guys written all over them. Plus they all have this nice little bulk under their jackets and last time I checked none of us here is bullet proof."  
  
"I don't care," Buffy said sternly. "I want to find out what happened to me down there once and for all! And if I have to punch out each and every one of these guys, then so be it!"  
  
With that she walked out the door.  
  
"Now you're talking, Slayer," Spike whistled and followed her, joined shortly by Xander and Willow, as well as Faith. Anya shook her head, mumbling something about the foolishness of helping people with whom you weren't sexually involved, then followed as well. Giles and Rose remained behind in his now empty living room.  
  
"Who is this Anne person?" Rose asked him.  
  
"Long story," Giles repeated, grabbed his coat, and hurried to catch up with the other. Somehow taking on armed government agents seemed a preferable situation to relaying everything that had happened here in Sunnydale these last two weeks.  
  
Rose looked after him.  
  
"I guess I know why they said he let things get out of control," Rose murmured to herself and walked out after the small army that had just departed, closing the door behind her.  
  
Inside the phone rang with no one to answer it. About a hundred miles away Angel cursed several times, then accelerated.  
  
TO BE CONTINUED 


	5. Chapter 5

Part 5  
  
#  
  
The small group of people walked through the sewer tunnel Spike had found for them. The constantly complaining Vampire had scouted ahead and reported but a few people between them and what was left of the Initiative base.  
  
Here, underground, pretenses were discarded it seemed. The guards wore full military garb and were armed to the teeth.  
  
Rose McNamara and Giles walked at the end of the group, the former Watcher having filled the new arrival in on what had happened here just two weeks ago. He had left out a few things, like Angel's presence and his own suspicions about what might have happened to Buffy.  
  
Still, even without that, the story was hard to believe for someone who had read about a lot, but not actually seen most of it. Giles found himself reminded of Wesley Windham-Pryce, remembering how the younger Watcher had once proudly told him of having actually met a Vampire before. Under controlled conditions. Of course Miss McNamara was a lot less pompous.  
  
"Heads up, kids," Spike called out from the front. "Army boys just around the next corner. And they're not carrying Science Fiction stun guns, either."  
  
"Okay," Buffy replied. "All non-combatants stay back here! That includes you, Ms. Watcher!"  
  
"I know how to handle myself."  
  
"I don't care if you can handle a dozen Vampires with one hand tied behind your back," Buffy spat back. "I don't know you, I don't trust you, so I don't want you doing things behind my back in the middle of combat! Stay here or I'll make you stay!"  
  
"I'm starting to like her," Spike remarked.  
  
"Miss McNamara, why don't you, Anya, and Willow stay here to ... ah, guard our retreat."  
  
"Yeah, right," Anya scoffed. "Not like I wanted to come along in the first place."  
  
Willow looked a little sour that Giles wanted her to stay behind, but grudgingly nodded. After the recent experiences with her haywire spells she was the last person to argue the point. Buffy gave Xander and Giles a look, but told neither of them to stay behind as well.  
  
"One of you will have to take down the army boys," Spike whispered as they rounded the next bend of the tunnel.  
  
"Someone not neutered, you mean?" Xander whispered back.  
  
"Quiet, you two," Giles hissed.  
  
Buffy and Faith communicated with a glance, the routine they'd had down so pat between them once upon a time slowly reestablishing itself, and quietly edged closer to two shadowy figures standing in the tunnel ahead of them, the glow of cigarette tips guiding them in.  
  
"I wish they would get finished with the cleanup in there," one of the figures murmured.  
  
"I wish we hadn't drawn sewer duty," the other answered.  
  
Seconds later neither of them wished for anything anymore, two synchronized blows having sent them off to dreamland.  
  
"Give me a few tough Vampires every day," Faith murmured, clearly uncomfortable despite her joke. Attacking humans after everything that had happened in the past left a very sour taste in her mouth.  
  
"Don't jinx us, okay?" Xander said, he and the others catching up with the Slayers.  
  
Faith replied something, but Buffy didn't hear it. Her vision wavered for a moment and the scenery around her changed. The sewer tunnel was replaced by a corridor, white walls blackened by fires. There were screams everywhere, sirens, the nauseating stench of burning human flesh.  
  
Get out! Have to get out!  
  
An image, herself, on fire. Flames eating her body, devouring her, she could see it. Red flames all over, her skin burned raw. She remembered the pain. So much pain.  
  
"Buffy?"  
  
The voice brought her back into the sewer tunnel, where three concerned faces were looking at her, along with one bored-looking Vampire.  
  
"You zoned out on us for a minute there," Xander said, his hand on her shoulder.  
  
"Sorry, I ..." She shook her head. "Flashback, I guess. The night of the explosion."  
  
"Anything new?" Giles asked, a strange look on his face that Buffy couldn't quite place.  
  
"No. Just ... just pain. Fire. The need to get out."  
  
Giles nodded, yet there was still that funny look on his face.  
  
"You might get some more memory flashes once we get in. Try to stay focused on the now, though. I'm afraid a distraction might lead to dangerous consequences once we enter the base."  
  
"Just say: Don't stray," Xander said. "With the long phrases again, G-man!"  
  
The group started moving forward again, Buffy and Faith directly behind Spike, Xander and Giles bringing up the rear. After some more minutes they arrived at a shattered tunnel wall. No, not shattered, Buffy thought. Melted. Behind the wall was another tunnel, but not of the shabby sewer variety.  
  
She knew this tunnel, or at least this kind of tunnel. White walls and ceilings with glow rods, cold and sterile. The fire had done a number of them, but apparently someone had cleaned away the worst of the damage.  
  
"We're inside," she whispered to the others.  
  
Even as she said it she felt another memory come alive inside her head. Violently.  
  
Couldn't move. Hurt so much to move. Every attempt was pure agony, as if someone had poured white-hot metal into her veins. Why did it hurt so much? What was happening to her? Her head was a cascade of images, screams.  
  
More pain, but she recognized that one now. The pain of birth, the artificial intelligence now called Anne coming awake the first time, born into a world of fire and screams, pain and agony. A digital scream added to hers as the world around her fell into burning pieces.  
  
She could move, suddenly able to move after the pain prevented her from moving, from escaping. So much fire everywhere, but now she could move. Escape from this nightmare, this corner of hell brought to Earth. She saw people in flames, screaming, trying to bat out the fires fueled by their own flesh. Power was pouring through the air, supernatural energy sparkled all around her.  
  
Another scream. A woman with glowing hands. A witch? Anne had said something about a witch being involved in the experiment. The witch was consumed by flames, her body thrashing by pure instinct, but her eyes are empty. So incredibly empty, everything inside her sucked away.  
  
Buffy remembered her head turning the other way, trying to find out where she was. There was something else there. Someone else. Another someone in flames, dying, empty.  
  
"Snap out of it," Faith pinched her in the side, bringing her back to the present.  
  
What had that been? She had remembered this scene before, waking up when the experiment had gone wrong. On fire, confused, full of pain, Anne just coming awake inside of her. No thought except escape. Yet there had been something else there. Something she had seen, yet not seen. Something she had forgotten.  
  
She couldn't shake the feeling that it had been something very important.  
  
Faintly she could hear Anne's voice in the back of her brain.  
  
Don't go there, Buffy, the AI pleaded. Please don't go there!  
  
Buffy didn't listen and the group proceeded through the remains of the Initiative base.  
  
TO BE CONTINUED 


	6. Chapter 6

Part 6  
  
#  
  
By some miracle he was not stopped anywhere between Sunnydale and Los Angeles, even though he had broken just about every speed limit his aged car was capable of breaking. He had left a message at the office for Cordy and Wesley, telling them what he had learned in the barest words.  
  
He was not sure if they understood anything. The blasted cell phone had died on him again somewhere in the middle of it. The damn things never worked.  
  
Angel finally approached Sunnydale's city limits, habit making him check the time. Plenty of time until sunrise. More than enough time to find them, or so he hoped.  
  
Just thinking about what could happen ... no, he couldn't think about that right now.  
  
Without warning his cell phone rang. Typical, he thought. Now, when he didn't have the time, the damn thing started working again. Whoever had invented these things must have been some kind of evil power.  
  
Without slowing down he flipped the cell open.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Angel? It's Wesley," the newest member of Angel Investigations said.  
  
"Now is a really bad time, Wesley," Angel answered impatiently.  
  
"I understood as much from the incomplete message you left on the answering machine. Something about Buffy ..."  
  
"Yes, but I don't have time right now. I'm in Sunnydale and I have to find them."  
  
"I understand, Angel, I do, but Cordelia just had a vision you might want to know about. Before you ask, it concerns Buffy."  
  
Angel's knuckles whitened as he gripped the steering wheel harder, almost tearing it off. His eyes were frozen on the road, navigating the shortest way towards Giles' apartment without breaking for stray cats of pedestrians.  
  
"Yes?" he asked, afraid of what he might hear.  
  
"Apparently something big is going to happen in what looks like the ruins of some kind of laboratory installation. Cordelia saw Buffy and quite a few of her friends there."  
  
Laboratory installation? That could only mean the Initiative base. Angel quickly turned the car around, the wheels screeching across the street. For a moment he almost lost control of the fishtailing vehicle, but then he was back on the road, speeding toward the Sunnydale university campus.  
  
"Anything else?" he asked Wesley.  
  
"Apparently the vision was of a more vague nature this time," Wesley said, "and so Cordelia isn't quite sure about a lot of details. She only said something about incredible pain and Buffy arguing with herself before ..."  
  
"... before what?" Angel asked when Wesley wouldn't continue.  
  
"... before ... before she ceased to be," the former Watcher finished.  
  
Angel just nodded. He already knew that something terrible had happened and that it could only end with ... no, he wouldn't think about that. Not yet. Not until he had seen it with his own eyes.  
  
"Angel, are you still there?" Wesley asked.  
  
"I'm here, Wesley. Did she see more?"  
  
For a moment there was silence. "She tells you to hurry, Angel," Wesley said eventually, his voice grim.  
  
Angel nodded, mumbled a consent into the phone, then hung up. Wesley hadn't seen a whole lot of the group dynamics between Cordelia and the rest of the Scooby Gang, especially Buffy, but he knew enough to realize that Cordelia would never tell Angel to hurry to Buffy's side unless the situation was especially dire.  
  
The university campus came into sight, much of it still a disaster zone. The area around the big crater was closed off with lots of people standing around, making sure no one got too close. Military operatives, all of them. General Allen had become very talkative, faced with a pissed-off Vampire. Seeing the scale of this operation, Angel had no doubt that enough firepower was gathered here to stop an army.  
  
Or maybe a runaway magical super soldier android.  
  
Fortunately the General had also provided Angel with the means to enter this closed-off area. Angel's car screeched to a halt just outside the perimeter and two armed guards were already closing in on him. They wore FEMA jackets, but Angel could spot the bulks of weaponry beneath those.  
  
These men moved like trained killers.  
  
"I'm sorry, sir," one of the guards said, his voice friendly, one hand casually resting close to the hidden weapon. "This area is off-limits. Please turn your car around!"  
  
"I'm from the General's office," Angel said, fishing out the access card Allen had given him.  
  
The two guards looked at each other for a long moment.  
  
"We weren't informed of any visitors tonight," one of them said.  
  
"I just work here, okay?" Angel told him with an impatience that was very much non-fake.  
  
One of the guards produced a scanning device and ran the card through it. After a few seconds it chirped and the man's features relaxed a bit.  
  
"Sorry for the delay, sir." He handed the card back. "Security must be maintained."  
  
"Certainly," Angel said, ducking under the tape that closed off the area. "How many people are down there right now?" He asked, motioning toward the crater.  
  
"No one, sir," the guard answered. "The recovery specialists have turned in for the night. We have standing orders not to have any people in there except when accompanied by the experts."  
  
Figured, Angel thought. Maggy Walsh's dangerous toys might blow a few more unsuspecting soldiers to bits if not handled correctly.  
  
"Should I wake them, sir?"  
  
"No reason. I just need to take a quick look inside. Won't take long."  
  
The guard seemed a bit uncertain, but Angel didn't wait for him to protest. Walking toward the crater with a firm stride he gave every indication of having every right to be here and do whatever he wanted to do. The guard didn't call after him.  
  
He might just call the General. Seeing as said General was probably still unconscious on the floor of his office Angel doubted he'd get disturbed in the next half hour or so.  
  
One way or another, this wouldn't take long.  
  
Angel started running as soon as he was out of sight of the guards. He just hoped he was in time.  
  
And not two weeks too late.  
  
TO BE CONTINUED 


	7. Chapter 7

Part 7  
  
#  
  
Buffy, Faith, Giles, Xander, and Spike entered the main area of the Initiative base, which Buffy remembered vaguely. A large staging area, the big laboratory pit in the middle, lots of corridors leading off into other parts of the base.  
  
Nothing much remained except the bare outline. The explosion had melted most of the walls and the myriad equipment Buffy remembered seeing in her brief memory flashes were completely gone. Everything looked molten and scorched.  
  
By some small miracle they had not met anymore people once they had entered the base. Apparently the place was empty for the night, the only people Spike's sense of smell could pick up where some more guards, who stood well outside the base proper.  
  
"About time we get lucky for once," Buffy muttered.  
  
Giles looked around the devastated area. It looked different than the place he had seen Buffy in during his nightmares these last two weeks. Nightmares of these people torturing and hurting his Slayer while he stood helpless, unable to protect her.  
  
Xander saw the grim look on Giles' face and guessed what was going through his head. He had never met this Riley guy or this professor Walsh, he just wished they were here right now so they could pay for what they did to his best friend. Never in his life had he been so relieved as when Faith and he had found Buffy alive two weeks ago. He just hoped that this ugly chapter would be closed tonight. After everything that happened Buffy deserved some downtime.  
  
Faith tried to remember if she had seen this place or any parts of it in her dream. She was still trying to make sense of it. Some parts had come through. Angel's appearance, her own involvement in helping Buffy, looking up Giles. She still didn't know, though, what the deal was with Buffy eating little faces and wearing a crimson skintight bodysuit. Or why Spike had sucked on that wound in her belly. She would make sure, at the very least, that the bleached Vampire died before he got the opportunity to do that.  
  
Spike looked around, recognizing this as the place where had escaped through after having his chip implanted. The chip that, even now, forced him to play nice with the Slayer. As much fun as it was to see her so distraught, he wanted her dead. Dead at his hands. That meant getting rid of this chip. Maybe he could find something down here to help in that endeavor.  
  
Buffy saw the place where something had been done to her and memories flashed through her head.  
  
Walsh.  
  
The witch with her glowing hands.  
  
Burning people with empty eyes.  
  
Fire everywhere.  
  
A glimpse of Riley, the back-stabbing traitor, tumbling down the metal stairway near the elevator, also on fire.  
  
Something was missing, she realized. Something incredibly important she had seen during this nightmare, something that she had somehow pushed away and forgotten.  
  
"Anne?" she murmured to herself, somehow hoping that the artificial intelligence would help her now, when there was no way back.  
  
I told you not to come here, Anne whispered in an incredibly sad voice.  
  
"Why? I need to know the truth, Anne. You're not telling me, so I have to find out on my own."  
  
You ever consider that there are some truths that are much better off not known?  
  
"What are you talking about?" Buffy demanded, but no more answer was forthcoming from the voice inside her head. What did Anne mean? What truth was so terrible that it should remain hidden from her? What had happened to her down here?  
  
"Damn, I hate this," Spike muttered.  
  
"What?"  
  
"The smell," Spike answered her. "Burned flesh. Not a drop of blood left in those scorched corpses. You'd think with a blowout this big there would be some dead people lying around that still had a bit of blood for me."  
  
"You'd snack on the dead?" Faith asked him. "You really are pathetic."  
  
"Welcome to the club, Ms. I-want-to-repent-for-my-sins-like-the-big-poof- Slayer. Come to think of it, we'd make a great team. You kill the humans, I suck their blood."  
  
Buffy saw Faith freeze at Spike's words, could see them slashing right through the brittle walls of self-esteem she had built back up these last two weeks.  
  
"Shut the hell up, Spike!" Buffy punched him in the face hard enough to take him off his feet. She went right past him and touched a frozen Faith on the shoulder, causing the other Slayer to jump.  
  
"Don't listen to him, okay?" Buffy told her. "Since he can't bite people anymore he has to get his jollies another way."  
  
Faith nodded, but Buffy could see that her wounds had been torn open again. The dark Slayer wanted to make amends for her mistakes, Buffy believed that by now. And Buffy would help her do it.  
  
As soon as she had found out what had happened to her down here.  
  
"I don't see any bodies," Xander said, looking around. "Which kinda makes me glad, actually."  
  
"They probably took the corpses away already," Giles nodded. "Though I can't imagine there will be much left of them. From the looks of those walls, the temperatures in here must have been enormous."  
  
He didn't say it, but Buffy heard him anyway. How had she survived this? How had she managed to get out of here without so much as a scratch? She didn't know. She remembered being on fire, but there hadn't been a single burn mark on here by the time she had regained her consciousness.  
  
She needed to know.  
  
Spike had struggled back to his feet, looking pissed, but keeping his mouth shut for the moment. Buffy remembered what he had said a moment ago.  
  
"You still smell the bodies?" she asked him. "Are they still here somewhere?"  
  
"Yeah," Spike replied sourly. "Smell comes from over there. Probably stashed the whole lot in a meat locker or something."  
  
Buffy looked in the direction he indicated. The far corner of the main staging area held some container-like structures that had clearly been brought here after the explosion.  
  
"We should take a look." Before anyone could protest she set off at a brisk pace. The others caught up with her by the time she reached the first of the containers.  
  
"In here?" she asked Spike.  
  
"Yeah. Better hold your breath, kitten!"  
  
Spike wrenched the door open and Faith, Giles, and Xander flinched back as the nauseating stench of scorched flesh and decay came at them. Cold air was trailing out of the container in vapors, but it did little to curb the stench.  
  
"God," Xander groaned.  
  
Interestingly enough Buffy found herself not bothered by the smell. Shouldn't a smell like that cause her insides to heave or something?  
  
The inside of the container held several rows of bodies, all of them covered with white sheets. Some of the outlines under the sheets seemed much too small to be human bodies, though, as if parts of them were missing. Some sheets had sunken into gaping holes and gotten soaked with fluids Buffy didn't want to think about.  
  
"Buffy, maybe we shouldn't ...," Giles began.  
  
Without waiting for him to finish Buffy walked into the container, the freezing temperature and the stench not bothering her in the least, and began ripping the sheets away. Some came away with a horrible slurping sound, sometimes taking pieces of molten flesh with them. Buffy didn't pay attention, she just looked at the faces.  
  
No, Buffy! I beg you ..., Anne's voice rang out inside her, but Buffy ignored it.  
  
Remains of faces. Remains of human features, destroyed by the fire. Some of them were still intact, at least in part, and she recognized quite a few. People she had seen at Riley's frat house or wandering around campus. Initiative soldiers, all of them. All dead.  
  
"Buffy, please ...," Giles said from the entrance.  
  
"Buffy, stop this," a new voice rang out. Buffy looked up just as she tore another sheet away, seeing a familiar shape fill the entrance of the container, pushing Giles aside.  
  
"Angel?" she asked softly.  
  
"Buffy, let's get out of here before ..." His voice trailed off, his eyes going past her. She heard Giles gasp, looking in the same direction.  
  
Buffy looked down, clutching the white sheet she had ripped off the body by her side. A body that was scorched an ugly black from top to bottom, the skin almost completely gone, the insides so much coal and ashes.  
  
Perversely a part of the body was almost undamaged. Part of one arm, a bit of the chest, and the face. Parts of the face. Remains of the face. A face that was familiar. So very familiar that, for a moment, Buffy couldn't quite comprehend what she was seeing.  
  
"Oh my God!" she heard someone mutter.  
  
She knew that face. Knew those dead, empty eyes staring up at her.  
  
Buffy looked down at the remains of her own face, her own body, and the only sound she heard was Anne, weeping inside her head.  
  
TO BE CONCLUDED 


	8. Part 8

Part 8  
  
#  
  
Angel looked at the scene before him, looked at Buffy gazing down at her own mortal remains, and was certain his dead heart was breaking all over again. He had seen it on the video files. Had seen Adam One, the android, get up and leave. Had seen Buffy, his beloved Buffy, lifeless on the floor, her beautiful form consumed by the flames.  
  
Only he hadn't really believed it until now. Buffy was dead.  
  
Adam One was not.  
  
"No," he heard Buffy, or not Buffy, whisper. Angel didn't know what to think. From all he knew, all he had seen, he knew she wasn't, couldn't be Buffy. Buffy was dead. And yet he had seen her two weeks ago, had held her, had talked to her. How was it that he, of all people, hadn't noticed the difference?  
  
He didn't know. He just didn't know.  
  
"I'm seeing double," Xander murmured. "Someone please tell me I'm drunk or something!"  
  
"Oh dear," was Giles only comment.  
  
"Two Slayers?" Spike looked back and forth, confused. "What the bloody hell ...?"  
  
"Buffy?" Faith asked softly.  
  
Adam One. Made from the skin of Proteus, god of 300 changes. Walsh wanted the Slayer's mind as a blueprint for her super soldier, wanted to channel Buffy's fighting instincts, her memories and experience, into her warrior.  
  
It appeared she had done it too well.  
  
"Anne?" Buffy called out to her silent companion, her voice small and barely audible. "Anne, I ... I don't ... Anne?"  
  
I am so sorry, Buffy, the voice inside her head said. I was hoping ...  
  
"What?" Buffy asked, unable to tear her eyes away from the scorched remains of her face. HER face. She was dead. Her body was here, in this meat locker. Dead.  
  
I didn't want you to find out like this, Anne whispered. I'm sorry.  
  
"Find out what?" Buffy yelled. "What happened here? How come I ... how can I ... I'm not dead! I know I'm not dead! I'm right here! I can't be dead!"  
  
She still stared at the body. "This is a trick," she whispered to herself. "Yes, some kind of trick. An illusion. Something to drive me insane."  
  
"Looks like it's working," Spike said, smirking.  
  
"Shut up!" Angel grabbed him and threw him unceremoniously out of the container, not paying attention to the muffled complaint from the other vampire. Then he turned back and slowly approached ... whoever she was.  
  
"Buffy!"  
  
"Am I?" She turned toward him, her face a mask of fear. "Am I? Buffy? How can I be Buffy if Buffy is dead? What am I?"  
  
She stared at her own hands. Those weren't her hands. Her hands were burned, disfigured, consumed by the flames. She remembered that. Remembered being burned. Even as she thought that she saw her fingers change before her eyes. The skin peeled away, became black and scorched, angry red blisters running up her arms.  
  
"No," she screamed. "NO!"  
  
Control yourself, Buffy, Anne yelled inside her head. You're losing control of the form!  
  
Angel and the others could only watch in sick fascination as Buffy's arms, her entire body, shuddered, warped, changed. Crimson metal replaced rosy skin, became burned skin, became crimson again. Buffy's face faded, replaced by featureless chrome, only to return a second later, tears running down her cheeks.  
  
"What have they done to me?" she screamed, falling to her knees.  
  
Angel went closer, not really knowing what he was going to do when he got there. He never had the chance to find out. The thing that wore Buffy's face surged back to its feet and flung Angel aside like a rag doll, then started running for the exit.  
  
Faith made half a step toward her, somehow thinking to stop this thing that looked like Buffy, and found herself airborne a second later, flying across the staging area and colliding with a bleached vampire just getting back to this feet. They both rolled over the floor and Faith felt a sharp pain as they collided with something else.  
  
Looking down, she saw a jagged piece of metal had cut open her belly. The cut was barely more than a scratch, but it was bleeding.  
  
"Very insightful of you, pet," Spike, lying beneath her, said. One or two droplets of blood found their way into his mouth before she could struggle away from him.  
  
"Great," she muttered. "Fucking prophecy dreams!"  
  
By the time she was back on her feet Buffy, or whatever it was, was gone.  
  
#  
  
"We have to find her," Giles said after Angel had filled him in, along with the others. "There is no telling her state of mind right now, even if we were sure who it is inside that android."  
  
"You think she's not Buffy?" Willow asked Giles, tears on her face. Her friend couldn't be dead. These last two weeks, that had been Buffy. She was sure. No copy could have fooled her.  
  
Could it?  
  
"There is no telling right now, I'm afraid," Angel said, looking more tired than Willow had ever seen him. "Maybe when we find ... her, we can ascertain how much of Buffy remains inside that ... whatever she is now."  
  
Faith sat on the couch, her face buried in her hands. She was aware that the Watcher, Rose McNamara, was sitting close by and watching her.  
  
She was the only Slayer now, it seemed. Buffy, or her body at the very least, was dead. As far as the rest went, they would have to find out. Faith was the Slayer now, though. One girl in all the world and all that shit.  
  
She made a silent promise to an absent friend to prove herself worthy.  
  
"Let's look for her, then," Faith said, rising to her feet, looking at Angel.  
  
"I have called Wesley and Cordelia. They're on their way here from Los Angeles. The more people are looking for her, the better."  
  
"And when we find her?" Xander asked, despair written all over his face.  
  
Giles sighed deeply. "Then ... we'll see."  
  
Everyone nodded and started searching.  
  
#  
  
Inside the darkness of a machine's mind the artificial intelligence known as Anne tried to think of something to do.  
  
Any ideas? she asked the other people present.  
  
How should I know? Professor Walsh asked. I certainly never intended to end up in here.  
  
Welcome to the club, the witch Colleen Wing said.  
  
Riley just stayed silent.  
  
THE END  
  
TO BE CONTINUED IN "IDENTITIES" 


End file.
